Morphological Constraint Perspectives in Optimality Theory

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Optimality Theory emerged to show the extent to which constraints rather than rules play a vital role in reordering word sounds. This paper aims to trace and explore whether there are morphological constraints similar to that are found in phonology or not, i.e. this paper is different from that application of phonological perspectives, it studies the impact of constraints not from a phonological viewpoint, but a morphological one. It is hypothesized that there is an existence of universal morphological constraints govern word formation. This paper traces the underlying forms (input) and the surface forms (output) of morphological constraints. In parallel with this, the existence of proved linguistic concepts, principles, and parameters, support the judgment of the universality of linguistic constraints, particularly those that belong to morphology. According to this theory, the principal idea is that output constituents of language reproduce and redirect resolutions of encounters between rival and challenging constraints. That means a morphological surface candidate is an optimal one in terms of it acquires the minimum violations of a collection of violable constraints taking into account that these morphological constraints are categorized and tiered in a language-specific grading. Ranking among morphological constraints differs among languages and it gives primacies to some constraints at the expense of others. The findings show the validity of the research hypothesis that morphological constraints control and regulate the morphological processes required for filling grammatical slots in spoken or written language.